us
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Appendix:Variations of "us"
English
Etymology 1
Etymology tree
From Middle English us, from Old English ūs (“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-Germanic *uns (“us”), from Proto-Indo-European *ne-, *nō-, *n-ge-, *n̥smé (“us”). The compensatory lengthening was lost in Middle English due to the word being unstressed when used. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uus (“us”), West Frisian us, ús (“us”), Low German uns, us (“us”), Dutch ons (“us”), German uns (“us”), Danish os (“us”), Latin nōs (“we, us”).
Pronunciation
Pronoun
us (personal pronoun; the objective case of we)
- Me and at least one other person, excluding the person(s) being addressed. (exclusive us.)
- Don't treat us like idiots.
- Me and at least one other person, including the person(s) being addressed. (inclusive us.)
- Let's ask him if he'll give us a lift.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:1:
- Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...
- Used where "me" would be used instead of "I", e.g. for the pronoun in isolation or as the complement of the copula:
- Who's there? — Us. (or) — It's us.
- Who's going to go? — Us. We'll go.
- Any entity that the speaker is a part of or identifies with, such as place of employment or education, nation, region, language, etc.
- It's not true that the rest of Europe hates us.
- I went to watch my favourite team play Real Madrid, but they thrashed us 5-0.
- People in general.
- Grief ages us.
- (colloquial) The person(s) being addressed.
- Come on! Wakey wakey! Let's get us up and out of bed, please.
- (colloquial) Used to imply connection between the speaker's experiences or activities and a group of listeners.
- Hey guys, in this video I'll show you how I make my upside-down sponge cake. First let's get us a few ingredients that we'll need ...
- (Commonwealth, colloquial, chiefly with certain verbs such as give, get, fetch, etc.) Me.
- Give us a look at your paper.
- Fetch us a cold beer from the fridge, would you.
- She's turned the weans against us!
- (talking to oneself) Now then ... let me see ... I hope I'm doing this right ... if we just connect these two wires together ... if it gives us a shock then ... Ow!
- (Northumbria) Me (in all contexts).
- Look at us while you’re speaking to us.
- Could you do that for us?
- (Northern England) Our.
- We'll have to throw us food out.
Alternative forms
Derived terms
- after us the deluge
- all your base are belong to us
- and so say all of us
- bless us
- can you tell us
- come down to us
- God preserve us
- it happens to the best of us
- let us
- let us count the ways
- let us go
- my very educated mother just served us nachos
- my very educated mother just served us nine pizzas
- my very educated mother just served us nine pumpkins
- my very educated mother just served us noodles
- my very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas
- no longer with us
- nothing about us without us
- still with us
- tell us another
- tell us another one
- them-and-us
- the poor we will always have with us
- they hate us 'cause they ain't us
- till death do us part
- till death us do part
- us-and-them
- us-and-them-ism
- us selves
- usses
- us versus them
- with us
Translations
objective case of "we"
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See also
Determiner
us
- Designates the speaker(s)/writer(s) as constituting or belonging to the stated category of people (objective case).
- It's not good enough for us teachers.
- (proscribed) Designates the speaker(s)/writer(s) as constituting or belonging to the stated category of people (subjective case).
- 1988 February 7, Mike Riegle, quoting John Royal, “Why Does GCN Have A Prisoner Project?”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 29, page 10:
- Us gays and lesbians in here got a reason to be bitching about the conditions.
See also
Etymology 2
Derived from the similarity between the letter u and the Greek letter µ.
Symbol
us
- Alternative spelling of µs: microsecond
- 2002, Peter Spasov, Microcontroller Technology, the 68HC11, page 489:
- ;wait 500 us
- 2012, Peter Feiler, David Gluch, Model-Based Engineering with AADL:
- The standard units are ns (nanoseconds), us (microseconds), ms (milliseconds), sec (seconds), min (minutes), and hr (hours).
- 2014, Michael Corey, Jeff Szastak, Michael Webster, Virtualizing SQL Server with VMware: Doing IT Right, page 198:
- Because the flash devices are local to the server, the latencies can be microseconds (us) instead of milliseconds (ms) and eliminate some traffic that would normally have gone over the storage network.
Etymology 3
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Noun
us
Anagrams
Catalan
Etymology
Pronunciation
Pronoun
us (proclitic and contracted enclitic, enclitic vos)
Usage notes
Declension
strong/subject | weak (direct object) | weak (indirect object) | possessive | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
proclitic | enclitic | proclitic | enclitic | |||||
singular | 1st person |
standard | jo, mi3 | em, m’ | -me, ’m | em, m’ | -me, ’m | meu |
majestic1 | nós | ens | -nos, ’ns | ens | -nos, ’ns | nostre | ||
2nd person |
standard | tu | et, t’ | -te, ’t | et, t’ | -te, ’t | teu | |
formal1 | vós | us | -vos, -us | us | -vos, -us | vostre | ||
very formal2 | vostè | el, l’ | -lo, ’l | li | -li | seu | ||
3rd person |
m | ell | el, l’ | -lo, ’l | li | -li | seu | |
f | ella | la, l’4 | -la | li | -li | seu | ||
n | ho | -ho | li | -li | seu | |||
plural | ||||||||
1st person | nosaltres | ens | -nos, ’ns | ens | -nos, ’ns | nostre | ||
2nd person |
standard | vosaltres | us | -vos, -us | us | -vos, -us | vostre | |
formal2 | vostès | els | -los, ’ls | els | -los, ’ls | seu | ||
3rd person |
m | ells | els | -los, ’ls | els | -los, ’ls | seu | |
f | elles | les | -les | els | -los, ’ls | seu | ||
3rd person reflexive | si | es, s’ | -se, ’s | es, s’ | -se, ’s | seu | ||
adverbial | ablative/genitive | en, n’ | -ne, ’n | |||||
locative | hi | -hi |
1 Behaves grammatically as plural. 2 Behaves grammatically as third person.
3 Only as object of a preposition. 4 Not before unstressed (h)i-, (h)u-.
Further reading
- “us” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
- “us”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.
- “us” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
Central Franconian
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle High German ūz, from Proto-Germanic *ūt.
Preposition
us (+ dative)
- (Ripuarian, parts of Moselle Franconian) out of, from
- 1936, Inscription on the Schwarze Katz well in Zell:
- He steiht ferm wie en Zeller us dem Hamm.
- He stands firm as a Zell man from the Hamm [i.e. the Moselle bow around Zell with its steeply sloped vineyards].
Usage notes
Alternative forms
- uus, uss
- aus, ous (Moselle Franconian)
Etymology 2
From Middle High German uns, from Proto-Germanic *uns, *unsiz. Loss of the nasal is due to a sporadic development (analogous to the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant-law, but later and not systematic); compare Luxembourgish eis, Limburgish ós.
Pronoun
us
- (most of Ripuarian, parts of Moselle Franconian) Dative/accusative first-person plural personal pronoun: us
Alternative forms
Fala
Etymology 1
From Old Galician-Portuguese os, from Latin illōs.
Alternative forms
- os (Mañegu)
Article
us m pl (singular u, feminine a, feminine plural as)
- (Lagarteiru, Valverdeñu) Masculine plural definite article; the
Pronoun
us
- (Lagarteiru, Valverdeñu) Third person plural masculine accusative pronoun; them
See also
nominative | dative | accusative | disjunctive | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular | first person | ei | me, -mi | mi | ||
second person | tú | te, -ti | ti | |||
third person |
m | el | le, -li | uLV, oM | el | |
f | ela | a | ela | |||
plural | first person |
common | nos | musL nusLV nos, -nusM |
nos | |
m | noshotrusM | noshotrusM | ||||
f | noshotrasM | noshotrasM | ||||
second person |
common | vos | vusLV vos, -vusM |
vos | ||
m | voshotrusM | voshotrusM | ||||
f | voshotrasM | voshotrasM | ||||
third person |
m | elis | le, -li | usLV, osM | elis | |
f | elas | as | elas | |||
third person reflexive | — | se, -si | sí |
Dialects: L Lagarteiru M Mañegu V Valverdeñu
Etymology 2
Alternative forms
Article
us m pl (singular un, feminine unha, feminine plural unhas)
- (Lagarteiru) Masculine singular indefinite article; some
References
- Valeš, Miroslav (2021) Diccionariu de A Fala: lagarteiru, mañegu, valverdeñu (web), 2nd edition, Minde, Portugal: CIDLeS, published 2022, →ISBN
French
Etymology
Inherited from Old French us, from Latin ūsus.
Pronunciation
Noun
us m pl (plural only)
- (plural only) mores; traditional practices or manners
Usage notes
- Now almost exclusively used in us et coutumes (“mores and customs”).
Related terms
Further reading
- “us”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
Gothic
Romanization
us
- Romanization of 𐌿𐍃
Middle English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Old English ūs (“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-Germanic *uns (“us”), from Proto-Indo-European *ne-, *nō-, *n-ge-, *n-sme- (“us”).
Pronunciation
Pronoun
us (nominative we)
- First-person plural accusative pronoun: us.
- (reflexive) ourselves.
- (reciprocal) each other.
Synonyms
Descendants
See also
nominative | accusative | dative | genitive | possessive | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular | 1st person | I, ich, ik | me | min mi1 | min | ||
2nd person | þou | þe | þin þi1 | þin | |||
3rd person | m | he | him hine2 | him | his | his hisen | |
f | sche, heo | hire heo |
hire | hire hires, hiren | |||
n | hit | hit him2 | his, hit | — | |||
dual3 | 1st person | wit | unk | unker | |||
2nd person | ȝit | inc | inker | ||||
plural | 1st person | we | us, ous | oure | oure oures, ouren | ||
2nd person4 | ye | yow | your | your youres, youren | |||
3rd person | inh. | he | hem he2 | hem | here | here heres, heren | |
bor. | þei | þem, þeim | þeir | þeir þeires, þeiren |
1 Used preconsonantally or before h.
2 Early or dialectal.
3 Dual pronouns are only sporadically found in Early Middle English; after that, they are replaced by plural forms. There are no third person dual forms in Middle English.
4 Sometimes used as a formal 2nd person singular.
2 Early or dialectal.
3 Dual pronouns are only sporadically found in Early Middle English; after that, they are replaced by plural forms. There are no third person dual forms in Middle English.
4 Sometimes used as a formal 2nd person singular.
References
- “ū̆s, pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 11 May 2018.
Middle Low German
Pronunciation
Pronoun
ûs or us
- (personal pronoun, dative, accusative) Alternative form of uns.
- (possessive) Alternative form of uns.
Declension
Possessive pronoun:
singular | plural | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
masculine | neuter | feminine | ||
Strong declension | ||||
nominative | ûs | ûse | ||
accusative | ûsen | ûs | ûse | |
dative | ûsem(e) (ûsennote) | ûser(e) | ûsen | |
genitive | ûses | ûser(e) | ||
Weak declension | ||||
nominative | ûse | ûsen | ||
accusative | ûsen | ûse | ûsen | |
dative | ûsen | |||
genitive |
The longer forms become rarer in the course of the period.
Norman
Etymology
From Old French uis, from Latin ostium.
Noun
us m (plural us)
Old English
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *uns, from Proto-Indo-European *n̥s, *nes. Cognates include Old Frisian ūs (West Frisian ús), Old Saxon ūs (Low German os, ons), Dutch ons, Old High German uns (German uns), Old Norse oss (Swedish oss), Gothic 𐌿𐌽𐍃 (uns). The Indo-European root is also the source of Latin nos.
Pronunciation
Pronoun
ūs
- accusative/dative of wē: (to) us
Descendants
Old French
Etymology
Noun
us oblique singular, m (oblique plural us, nominative singular us, nominative plural us)
Descendants
- French: us
Old Frisian
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *uns, *unsiz. Cognates include Old English ūs, Old Saxon ūs and Old Dutch uns.
Pronunciation
Pronoun
ūs
- accusative/dative of wī
Declension
nominative | accusative | dative | genitive | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular | 1st person | ik | mī | mī | mīn | |
2nd person | thū | thī | thī | thīn | ||
3rd person |
m | hī | hine | him | sīn | |
f | hiū, hiō | hiā | hire, hiāre | hire, hiāre | ||
n | hit | hit | him | sīn | ||
plural | 1st person | wī | ūs | ūs | ūser | |
2nd person | jī | jū, jō | jū, jō | jūwer | ||
3rd person | hiā | hiā | him, hirem, hiārem | hira, hiāra |
Descendants
References
- Bremmer, Rolf H. (2009) An Introduction to Old Frisian: History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN
Portuguese
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -us
Noun
us
Scots
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English us, from Old English ūs (“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-Germanic *uns (“us”), from Proto-Indo-European *ne-, *nō-, *n-ge-, *n̥smé (“us”).
Pronoun
us
See also
personal pronoun | possessive pronoun | possessive determiner | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
subjective | objective | reflexive | |||||
first person | singular | A, I, Ik | me | mysel | mine, mines | mine, my | |
plural | we | us, we | oorsel, oorsels | oors | our | ||
second person | singular | standard (formal) | ye you, yow | ye you, yow | yersel yoursel | yers yours | yer your |
Insular (informal) | thoo | thee | thysel, theesel | thines | thy, thee, thees | ||
plural | ye, yese you, youse | ye, yese you, youse theer | yesels yoursels | yers yours | yer your | ||
third person | singular | masculine | he, e | him, im | himsel, hissel | his, is | his, is |
feminine | scho, she, shu | her, er | hersel | hers | her, er | ||
neuter | it hit | it hit | itsel hitsel | its hits | its hits | ||
genderless, nonspecific (formal) |
ane | ane | – | – | ane's | ||
plural | thay | thaim | thaimsel, thaimsels | thairs | thair |
Scots personal pronouns
References
- “us, pers. pron.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, retrieved 7 June 2024, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.
- “us, pers. pron.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, retrieved 7 June 2024, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
Serbo-Croatian
Etymology
Inherited from Proto-Slavic *ǫsъ.
Noun
ȕs f (Cyrillic spelling у̏с)
References
- “us”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025
Turkish
Tz'utujil
Volapük
West Frisian
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